Liviu Bratoloveanu, pen name of Vasile Gheorghe Bratoloveanu (8 August 1912 – 13 July 1983), was a Romanian poet, novelist, playwright, and communist militant. He was a native of Turnu Severin in westernmost Oltenia, an area that remained central to his fiction. During a troubled childhood which eventually saw him abandoning school, he debuted with contributions in children's magazine. In his twenties, he became a full-time journalist, publishing his first volume of poetry in 1935. Bratoloveanu was by then adapting to the stylistic requirements of proletarian literature, and, in terms of politics, moved closer to the outlawed Communist Party (which he would only join upon its legalization, in 1945). A succession of fascist regimes silenced this aspect of his contributions, though he was still allowed to work in cultural journalism—finding permanent employment as a clerk and cultural promoter in the state railway carrier. During World War II, Bratoloveanu may have joined the fascist Iron Guard, an aspect that was expunged from his biographies; he was however mostly withdrawn, working intensely on a series of novels and stories that were only published much much later, or not published at all.
The August 1944 coup, which inaugurated a leftward shift in Romanian society, also witnessed Bratoloveanu's reemergence as a communist author. He finally completed the large novel Oameni la pândă (1947) in which he elaborated on the established formulas of social realism. This contribution received mixed reviews, some of which prompted him to do a rewrite; however, even in the original version, critics noted his talent for grasping the motivations of real-life peasants—as a trait which elevated the work's politicized content. Just months after this milestone in Bratoloveanu's career, a Romanian communist regime was proclaimed. In its initial phase, it promoted him, and featured him as a leading organizer of the Writers' Union. However, Bratoloveanu was eventually marginalized for most of the 1950s, and sent to do work for the Giulești Workers' Theater.
When Bratoloveanu returned to favor in 1958, it was a dramatist, with a commemorative play about the Grivița strike of 1933. In the final part of his career, he clerked at the national film studios in Buftea, where he also lived. He was allowed to return to publishing with short stories, and later with one of three planned sequels to Oameni la pândă and the separate novel Reptila. The reception remained mixed: he continued to be praised for his authentic streak, but generally dismissed as "schematic" or conventionally communist in the bulk of his contributions. With some of these works, he prolonged the echoes of socialist realism well into the 1970s. He died of a disease shortly before turning 71, and was largely forgotten by readers after that moment.
Early life Vasile Gheorghe Bratoloveanu, the future "Liviu", was born at Turnu Severin on the Danube; his exact birth date is 8 August 1912."Decese", in România Liberă, 15 July 1983, p. 5Matei Alexandrescu, "Un dialog cu Liviu Bratoloveanu", in Ramuri, Vol. VII, Issue 8, August 1970, p. 15Durnea, p. 1036 His father, Gheorghe Bratoloveanu, was a merchant and one-time municipal councilor, originally from Padeș. As reported by his son, he had passed through Baia de Aramă, which was also were Gheorghe lived in his toddler years, down to World War I. Gheorghe faced financial distress a while after, and separated from Vasile's mother Zoe. She and Vasile lived for a while in Bucharest, the Romanian Kingdom's capital city; this interrupted Vasile's studies at Turnu Severin's commercial school, though he returned in 1927. Also in 1927, he debuted with short prose in the children's supplement of Dimineața daily, and, almost simultaneously, in a similar paper put out by Universul. Young Bratoloveanu then followed up with verse and prose in Veselia, the grownup humor magazine. He quit school soon after, to focus on his writing; a regular contributor to the magazine Cuvântul Nostru and an editorial secretary on Mehedințeanul newspaper (later renamed Nădejdea), he tried his hand as a magazine editor, with three short-lived attempts: Vitraliu ("Stained Glass", 1932–1933), Rod ("Yield", 1932–1933), and Mahalaua ("The Mahala", 1933). Reportedly, he had changed his given name as an homage to a senior novelist, Liviu Rebreanu.Marcel Marcian, "Panoptikon. A plecat. De ce", in Contemporanul, Issue 36/1992, p. 8 In addition to this signature, he was using a variety of pseudonyms, among them: Lică, Vasia Bratilov, Vasigebra, Vasile Turbatu, Vasile Mălureanu, Vasile Prundeanu, Causticus, Ironicus, Coca Demetrescu, Mircea T. Damaschin, Mircea Cantemir, Ioniță Piron, Ady Corolenko, and Ady Stolnicu.
Bratoloveanu's first book of published verse was called Manifest ("Manifesto"), and appeared in Turnu Severin in 1935.Durnea, pp. 1036, 1037; Ionesco, p. 183 As noted by literary scholar Victor Durnea, it was largely a work of "social" and "objective" free verse, with stylistic patterns that borrowed from Aron Cotruș; it thus mirrored Bratoloveanu's prose works of the period, which were generally "analytical".Durnea, p. 1037 In retrospect, Bratoloveanu accepted his work being labeled as proletarian literature, explaining that he had a "romantic conviction" in denying that the "superstructure" produced during the Romanian Kingdom. He also noted that this impulse closely preceded his established belief in "social justice", and in literature as a "weapon of the revolutionary proletariat". A personal friend of the left-leaning author Alexandru Sahia,"Carnet", in Scînteia Pionierului, Vol. XV, Issue 46, November 1964, p. 8 he also acknowledged that, in the 1930s, he already felt predisposed toward the then-illegal Communist Party (PCR or PCdR). Manifest also received positive coverage from a literary paper of the Crusade of Romanianism, which had broken out of the fascist Iron Guard and was pursuing its own path in interwar politics. According to this source, Bratoloveanu's poems illustrated a phenomenon whereby the Romanian youth had renounced the "chaos" of fascism and was heading toward "the most righteous point of convergence of various trends: the far-left."Ionesco, p. 184 This message was in turn covered as an oddity by essayist Eugène Ionesco, who wrote that the Crusade was "confusing the extremes".Ionesco, pp. 183–184
Bratoloveanu himself was proud of Manifest being well received by two senior literary figures, George Călinescu and Mircea Damian—though the latter also chided him for being "too left-wing", or "too sectarian". Late in 1935, Bratoloveanu and Mihail Macavei established in Turnu Severin an "anti-fascist committee". They thus supported an initiative heralded nationally by Dem I. Dobrescu, and specifically demanded that Petre Constantinescu-Iași, who had established the original anti-fascist club and was being tried for his links with the PCR, be released from prison."Locuitorii din Turnu Severin și Caracal cer stingerea procesului prof. Constantinescu-Iași", in Zorile, 12 November 1935, p. 4 In June 1936, Bratoloveanu was one of the "intellectual and workers of Turnu Severin" who signed a letter of solidarity with the leftists at Dimineața and Adevărul—and against Universul, whose right-wing editor, Stelian Popescu, was depicted by them as a libeler and an exploiter."Alte falsuri ale Universului. Protestul muncitorilor din Turnu-Severin", in Dimineața, 21 June 1936, p. 8 The young poet was for a while employed by the Bucharest daily Facla, but returned to his hometown as a member of the editorial teams of Țara Nouă and Curentul Mehedințean newspapers. He was courting the fellow leftist Lilly Gogan, whom he eventually married. In 1936–1937, he was again leading his own magazine, called Reportaj ("Reportage"). He made his debut as a playwright at some point during that period, when his Omul care și-a vândut sufletul ("The Man Who Sold His Soul") was performed by workers of the national railways carrier (CFR), and later by a regular troupe in Turnu Severin.
World War II Bratoloveau moved back to Bucharest, having found permanent employment at the CFR—on whose magazines he also contributed regularly. Around 1943, he was a cultural promoter at Săptămâna CFR magazine, which had contributions from Tudor Arghezi and Alexandru Al. Philippide, and where he also brought in new talent (including critic Al. Raicu).Al. Raicu, "Liviu Bratoloveanu", in România Literară, Issue 29/1983, p. 11 During the late interwar and World War II, his work was also taken up in the central dailies România and Vremea, in the cultural magazine Dacia Rediviva, and in Mihu Dragomir's Prepoem. In December 1940, under the fascist "National Legionary State", he published in the Iron Guard's official newspaper, Axa, an article suggesting that railway workers be required to take regular baths;Liviu Bratoloveanu, "Ceferiști. Băi pentru muncitori", in Axa, 6 December 1940, p. 6 according to historian Dragoș Sdrobiș, Bratoloveanu was in effect a Guardist affiliate.Dragoș Sdrobiș, "Periplu între extrem(ism)e politice: Dumitru Corbea", in Studii și Materiale de Istorie Contemporană, Issue 1/2018, pp. 57–58 He began working on a novel, Ugli, and read fragments of it at Sburătorul literary society.N. P., "Viața artistică. Da!", in Viața, 8 February 1944, p. 2 His second book of poems, Eu și Dunărea ("Me and the Danube"), saw print at Ramuri of Craiova in 1940,Durnea, pp. 1036, 1037 or, per Bratoloveanu's own recollection, in 1942. Durnea reads it as more intensely lyrical, "a unitary poem, structured as the diary of a travel down the [eponymous] river, and, at the same time, into one's own memory." The author himself acknowledged that the book was "toned down" when it came to political messaging, but also that this was due to its publication "under a full-on fascist regime", when "one could not call out things as they were."
In mid-1943, Bratoloveanu attracted attention with a peasant-themed novella, published in Damian's journal Fapta. Fellow writer Ion Caraion noted that this was one of his "so very rare" public contributions, since the author was "hard at work, shunning everyday agitation." Caraion also reported that Bratoloveanu was preparing a collection of novellas, Bunica studiază dreptul ("Grandmother Is Studying Law").Ion Caraion, "Catalog. O nuvelă", in Timpul, 4 July 1943, p. 2 In early 1944, he had additionally completed another play, Femeia domestică ("The Domestic Woman"). It was praised by his colleagues at Viața, which noted that "few plays in young dramatic literature, of those written these last years, have reached its level of quality." They also reported that Bratoloveanu could not find a theater willing to take it into production—but that this was because of the promotional system having been corrupted.
Following the August 1944 coup, which brought Romania into the Allied camp, Bratoloveanu went public with his leftist convictions. He was for a while an editor at Fapta, put out in Bucharest by Damian, later describing his boss as "something of a 'moderate' anarchist who [...] punched both right and left". In 1945, he finally joined the PCR, was co-opted by the CFR's general directorate, and took over as editor of Munca CFR journal. His work appeared in Revista Literară, later seen by cultural journalist Ion Cristoiu as a nucleus of prose writers—also comprising Aurel Baranga, Alexandru Jar, Petru Vintilă, and Haralamb Zincă. All these authors wrote sketch stories on topics provided to them by the PCR, such as the issue of monetary reform; Bratoloveanu's contribution to that theme was about the turmoil of a small-time trader, Costică Balaure, who becomes aware of his pending arrest for price gouging.Cristoiu, "O grupare", p. 11